Without the Lord

Mary Beard reports:

Melbourn Village College — not far from Cambridge — has decided to ditch its Latin motto: “Nisi dominus frustra”. And I guess you can see why. It’s a contraction of the first line of Psalm 127, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain”… so you might translate the three Latin words of the motto something like “Without the Lord, frustration”, I guess. A touch pious you might think, and a bit Judaeo-Christian. But I can’t see that any world faith could seriously disagree and, anyway, it’s served the city of Edinburgh well enough for the last few hundred years.

They have replaced it (after a student vote, it seems) with what sounds to me more like an advertising jingle: “Inspiring Minds” (which is bound to look “so 2011” in a few years time that it too will soon be ditched). According to the Acting Principal, they wanted a motto that was more relevant to the students. In the current economic climate, Latin was “largely irrelevant” in helping the students find work.

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Use All the Circumstances of My Life Today

A prayer by John Baillie:

Teach me, O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life today

that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin.

Let me use disappointment as material for patience;
Let me use success as material for thankfulness;
Let me use suspense as material for perseverance;
Let me use danger as material for courage;
Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering;
Let me use praise as material for humility;
Let me use pleasures as material for temperance;
Let me use pains as material for endurance.

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Churches in NYC Since 9/11

Terry Mattingly, on 9/11 and churches in New York City:

Here's the statistic that insiders keep citing, drawn from a Values Research Institute (www.nycreligion.info) study: Forty percent of the evangelical Protestant churches in Manhattan were born after 2000, an increase of about 80. During one two-month stretch in 2009, at least one Manhattan church was planted every Sunday.

The impact has been big on one scale and tiny on another. According to the institute's research, the percentage of New Yorkers in center-city Manhattan who identify themselves as evangelical Protestants has, since 1990, risen from less than 1 percent to 3 percent. In other words, the evangelical population has tripled.

This relatively small slice means that -- from an evangelical-Protestant viewpoint -- missionaries still consider the city's population an "unreached people group" when compared with other regions. Thus, in 2003 the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention pinned its "Strategic Focus City" label on New York, initiating a four-year project offering additional funds, volunteers and church-planting professionals.

It's impossible to tell this story without discussing the impact of 9/11, noted journalist Tony Carnes, who leads the Values Research Institute team. Rescue workers poured into New York City from across the nation, including volunteers from heartland churches not known for their affection for New York City.

"For the first time, to a large degree, important evangelical leaders realized that New York City was not what they thought it was," said Carnes. "They learned that you didn't need to walk down the street at night looking over your shoulder, worried that you were going to get shot. ...

"They also learned that there were already many evangelical churches here and that they were not weak, struggling and embattled. Many were strong, vital and growing."

The bottom line is that, while 9/11 was crucial, this story didn't start with 9/11.

Out of Control

Timothy Stoner:

God really believes that he is the most worthy, most majestic, magnificent, glorious, stunningly beautiful being in the universe. And he is fixated on the certainty that only he deserves worship – that to him alone belong honor, glory, and praise forever and forever. With red-rimmed, stinging eyes and burning hair, all we can say is – he is right. He is astonishingly beautiful, utterly majestic and perfect in the symmetries of justice and righteousness, knowledge, and wisdom. He is as hypnotically compelling as a surging forest fire and ten times as dangerous. He is out of control – ours, not his.

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Your Words Have Direction

Paul Tripp:

The book of Proverbs is, in ways, a treatise on talk. I would summarize it this way: words give life; words bring death – you choose. What does this mean? It means you have never spoken a neutral word in your life. Your words have direction to them. If your words are moving in the life direction, they will be words of encouragement, hope, love, peace, unity, instruction, wisdom, and correction. But if your words are moving in a death direction, they will be words of anger, malice, slander, jealousy, gossip, division, contempt, racism, violence, judgment, and condemnation. Your words have direction to them. When you hear the word talk you ought to hear something that is high and holy and significant and important. May God help us never to look at talk as something that doesn’t matter.

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The Gospel at Ground Zero

Russell Moore reflects on 9/11 and the Cross. Here is the conclusion:

Let's join the rest of the world in remembering September 11. Let's not flinch from the trauma, but let's not be paralyzed by it either. And along the way, let's remember to have sympathy for those who flinch at the trauma of our gospel, who wince when the light of God's judgment exposes their dark places. Let's remember that the hands we are reaching out with are scabbed over with Roman spike holes, and the cross we are holding out is caked in blood.

Let's remember, too, that the gospel brings peace and reconciliation to every Ground Zero in the cosmos. On the day when graves are opened, even those accidental tombs beneath the rubble of terror, we will see just how good this news is, even better than our shiny churches and happy choruses can convey.

But between now and then, it can be scary as hell.

Isolation or Community

Consider this, and remember to join us for Sunday Schopl, worship and small groups tomorrow.

"We weren't built for isolation. We were created for community."

Community: Taking Your Small Group off Life Support from Crossway on Vimeo.

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Application Is Not Legalism

John Stott:

There are many pastors today who, for fear of being branded 'legalists', give their congregation no ethical teaching. How far we have strayed from the apostles! 'Legalism' is the misguided attempt to earn our salvation by obedience to the law. 'Pharisaism' is a preoccupation with the externals and minutiae of religious duty. To teach the standards of moral conduct which adorn the gospel is neither legalism nor pharisaism but plain apostolic Christianity.

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What About Demons?

R. C. Sproul:

I think we can take some solace in the thought that it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet with Satan in our lifetimes. He has bigger fish to fry. He’s not going to chase after the little guys. But nevertheless, he has a host of minions, his demons, to do his work for him, and so they may surround us as close as our clothes, and satanic emissaries may besiege us, and we have to be alert to that. But it’s unlikely that you and I will encounter the Prince of Darkness himself. I say that because he is not omnipresent. That is an attribute that belongs only to God. Also, he’s not omniscient. Satan does not know everything. Satan is a creature, and he is defined by the limits of creatureliness.

In the Bible, we see [demons] possessing people and oppressing people, causing bodily harm, property damage, and all kinds of things. The Christian is always faced with this question: Can I be demon-possessed? I don’t believe so. I believe that people can be demon-possessed, but I don’t think that this is possible for a Christian, because God the Holy Spirit resides in the regenerate person, and the Scriptures tell us, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). So, no demon can hold us hostage to the power of Satan. Demons can oppress us, they can harass us, they can tempt us, attack us and so on, but thanks be to God, He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

When the Feelings Aren't There

John Piper:

I am often asked what a Christian should do if the cheerfulness of obedience is not there. It is a good question. My answer is not to simply get on with your duty because feelings are irrelevant! My answer has three steps.

First, confess the sin of joylessness. Acknowledge the culpable coldness of your heart. Don't say it doesn't matter how you feel.

Second, pray earnestly that God would restore the joy of obedience.

Third, go ahead and do the outward dimension of your duty in the hope that the doing will rekindle the delight.

To Dwell Among Sinners

Martin Luther:

Now I should like to know whether your soul, tired of its own righteousness, is learning to be revived by and to trust in the righteousness of Christ. . . . My dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and have given to me what is yours. You have taken upon yourself what you were not and have given to me what I was not.’ Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners. On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners. Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation.

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Fearlessly Exposed

Russell Moore:

What in your life would you fear if anyone found out about it?

What would horrify you if it were exposed before your family, your friends, your acquaintances?

In gospel repentance and faith, we fearlessly expose ourselves to Judgment Day in the present. That’s what the confession of sin is, a revealing of what Jesus already promises to reveal on the Day of Christ (Luke 8:17).

Our problem is that we often, like Adam before us, want to hide our temptations, and especially our sin, to cover it over to save face. Hiding, though, is exactly the opposite of what a Christian does when confronted with satanic designs. The darkness is where these evils latch onto us. Instead we can preemptively shine light on this, with God in prayer and in our authentic accountability to the Body of Christ, his church.

Our Christian reluctance to speak honestly about temptation is precisely why Christians like Felix often believe themselves to be unbelievers. All they see of other believers is this façade of smiling, peaceful Christ-followers. They assume then that the internal life of every other Christian is just a continual festival of hymns as opposed to their own internal life in which the hymns are interrupted with constant gossipy chatter, violent rage, and hard-core pornography.

This is exactly how the satanic powers want it. They want the prideful and oblivious to stay that way, until they fall and slink away in isolation, where they can be devoured.

Preaching the gospel to ourselves, though, reminds us continually that we are sinners and that we can stand only by the blood of Jesus. We can walk only by his Spirit prodding us on. We need one another, as parts of the same body together.

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Lofty and Lowly

Since our Church Family Camp this past weekend, I've been memorizing/meditating on this verse:

Isaiah 57:15
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,

who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

"I dwell in the high and holy place,

and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly,

and to revive the heart of the contrite."

When I read this quotation today from Timothy Stoner, it went right along with that verse:

The love that won on the cross and wins the world is a love that is driven, determined, and defined by holiness. It is a love that flows out of the heart of a God who is transcendent, majestic, infinite in righteousness, who loves justice as much as he does mercy; who hates wickedness as much as he loves goodness; who blazes with a fiery, passionate love for himself above all things. He is Creator, Sustainer, Beginning and End. He is robed in a splendor and eternal purity that is blinding. He rules, he reigns, he rages and roars, then bends down to whisper love songs to his creatures. His love is vast and irresistible. It is also terrifying, and it will spare no expense to give everything away in order to free us from the bondage of sin, purifying for himself a people who are devoted to his glory, a people who have “no ambition except to do good”. So he crushes his precious Son in order to rescue and restore mankind along with his entire creation. He unleashes perfect judgment on the perfectly obedient sacrifice and then pulls him up out of the grave in a smashing and utter victory. He is a God who triumphs… He is a burning cyclone of passionate love. Holy love wins.

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Why God Tests Us

Ed Welch:

God is the One Who Tests, and he will test you. Don't think of final exams and test anxiety. Think of this test as a way to expose traitors during wartime. We are the potential traitors and don't even know it. God tests us because we are so oblivious to the mixed allegiances in our hearts. The purpose of the test is to help us see our hearts and if they are found traitorous, we can turn back to God. God is not playing mind games with us; he is forging a relationship.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain obread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. - Ex. 16:4

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you yto know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. - Deut. 8:2

Control freaks and worriers are being told that the challenges of life are ordained by the Father and King. They are neither random nor accidental. The outcome of these daily tests doesn't give God any new information about us. He is the Searcher and Knower of hearts. At least one of their purposes is to reveal us to ourselves. In that, they have the potential to reorient us and send us back to the true God.

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Godly Boasting

John Piper:

God loves it when man boasts in God, and God hates it when man boasts in man. “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (2 Cor. 10:17). “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14). “The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up” (Isa. 2:11–12).

There are two reasons (at least) why God hates for man to boast in man:

1) Boasting in man deflects man’s attention from the fountain of his joy and ruins his life. It tricks man into replacing magnificence with a mirror. Man was not made to admire man. He was made to admire God. The joy of admiration is prostituted and ruined when man tries to find galaxy-size glory in the glow of his own reflection. God does not like the damage done by boasting in man.

2) The other reason God hates for man to boast in man is this: It conveys the conviction that man is more admirable than God. Now that is, of course, untrue. But we would miss the point if we said, “God hates lying and therefore God hates boasting in man because it conveys a lie.” No.

That’s not quite right. What God hates is the dishonoring of God. Lying happens to be one way that he is dishonored as the God of truth. So the real problem with man’s boasting in man is that it belittles God.

Boasting in God, on the other hand, does the double opposite: it honors God and gives man the joy for which he was made: admiring the infinitely admirable.

Ongoing Communion with God

R. C. Sproul:

Yes, my sins have all been paid for, once and for all, on the cross. But Jesus taught us to pray for forgiveness as part of our ongoing communion with God. We need a fresh understanding, a fresh experience, of His grace and of His forgiveness every day. There is no greater state than to get up from your knees knowing that in God’s sight you are clean, that He has forgiven every sin you’ve ever committed. Without that grace, without that forgiveness, I don’t think I could live in this world for another sixty seconds. This is something we all desperately need, and we have but to ask for it.

The Fainthearted, Feeble, and Ailing

Martin Luther:

May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins.

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Pluralism Is Intolerant

Jonathan Dodson:

Very often people hold to religious pluralism because they think it is more tolerant than Christianity. I’ll be the first to say that we need tolerance, but what does it mean to be tolerant? To be tolerant is to accommodate differences, which can be very noble. I believe that Christians should be some of the most accommodating kinds of people, giving everyone the dignity to believe whatever they want and not enforcing their beliefs on others through politics or preaching. We should winsomely tolerate different beliefs. Interestingly, religious pluralism doesn’t really allow for this kind of tolerance. Instead of accommodating spiritual differences, religious pluralism blunts them. Let me explain.

The claim that all paths lead to the same God actually minimizes other religions by asserting a new religious claim. When someone says all paths lead to the same God, they blunt the distinctives between religions, throwing them all in one pot, saying: “See, they all get us to God so the differences don’t really matter.” This isn’t tolerance; it’s a power play. When asserting all religions lead to God, the distinctive and very different views of God and how to reach him in Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam are brushed aside in one powerful swoop. The Eightfold Noble Path of Buddhism, the 5 Pillars of Islam, and the Gospel of Christ are not tolerated but told they must submit to a new religious claim–all ways lead to God–despite the fact that this isn’t what those religions teach.

*****

As it turns out, the reasons for subscribing to religious pluralism—enlightenment, humility, and tolerance—actually backfire. They don’t carry through. Religious pluralism isn’t enlightened, it’s inaccurate; it isn’t humble, it’s fiercely dogmatic; and it isn’t really all that tolerant because it intolerantly blunts religious distinctives. In the end, religious pluralism is a religion, a leap of faith, based on contradiction and is highly untenable. Christianity, on the other hand, should respect and honor the various distinctives of other religions, comparing them, and honoring their differing principles–Karma (Hinduism), Enlightenment (Buddhism), Submission (Islam), and Grace (Christianity).

Union with Christ

Kevin DeYoung:

The doctrine of union with Christ is so common in the New Testament that it is easy to miss. Over two hundred times in Paul’s letters and more than two dozen times in the writings of John we see expressions like “in Christ,” “in the Lord” or “in him.” We are found in Christ, preserved in Christ, saved and sanctified in Christ. We walk in Christ, labor in Christ, sorrow in Christ, and conquer in Christ. We obey in Christ and are made perfect in Christ—just to name a few examples. Another thirty-two times Paul speaks of believers participating together with Christ in some aspect of redemption, whether it’s dying with Christ, being buried with Christ, being raised with Christ, or being seated with Christ.

Apart from this kind of union, all the blessings of Christ would be outside us. It’s only when the Spirit joins us to Christ and we are ingrafted into his body that we can participate, not only in Christ’s benefits, but in Christ himself. The whole of the Christian life from election to justification to sanctification to final glorification is made possible by, and is an expression of, our union with Christ. That’s why Jesus’ final request in the High Priestly Prayer is that “I [may be] in them” (John 17:26) and why Paul says “Christ in you” is the hope of glory (Col. 1:21).

Missions and Missional

Perhaps you've heard of the current evangelical buzzword "missional," but you might not know what the difference is between that and "missions." In the best use of the term, it is trying to get Christians to think and act like missionaries in their own locality, but some end up pitting this local missional approach with cross-cultural missions.

Ed Stetzer brings the two together helpfully:

If there were ever a people who understood that they would join Jesus on his mission, it would certainly be his disciples in the early church. They lived with him. They heard his teaching. And then he says to them in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” One of the basic principles of hermeneutics is to ask what did the words mean to the original hearers, and it seems self-evident that when they heard John 20:21 they responded by going to the nations. Paul yearned to go to Spain. Thomas went to India. The Apostles responded to this “sending” with global engagement.

Thus, when we say that mission exists because worship doesn't everywhere exist, we understand that central to the mission of God is the proclamation of the good news of the gospel so that men and women everywhere might hear, respond, repent, and give glory to God. Jesus sends the church out — but he specifically mentions that this is to the uttermost parts of the earth. Any talk about missions that ignores the lost and hurting immediately around us is missing part of the mission itself. But any talk about being missional that does not sense an urgency to move beyond our local territory into other tribes, tongues, and nations leads us into a biblical-theological dead end.

As the recipients of amazing grace we are compelled by divine love to join Jesus on mission so that his name and his fame might be known, not only through our individual lives and local churches, but also all over the earth.